Government Model v. 3.1

[roquijad]

It looks good to me, Laurent!

Just to detail it some more, I think the precise buttons at the bottom we need at this point are:
Current Govt Profile (negotiated values)
Ruler Preferences (only screen where the player can change values)
Military Political Block (values desired by MPB)
Religious Political Block (same)
Capitalists PB (same)
People's PB (same)
Bureaucracy PB (same)


For playing purposes, there should be just two groups of variables: pol powers and policies. Not three, as in the model (and in the picture). In other words, the player doesn't need to know and shouldn't even care, that Private Property and Social Policies are not handled in the same way as all other policies (Civil Rights, Slavery, etc) inside the model. In fact, I think it'll be more confusing if we split them in the interface as we're doing now. The player just needs to understand there're policies and there's a structure of power that determines who defines the values for those policies. I would, therefore, put all policies in the right window (move PP and SP to the right window).
In that right window, though, we may, if we believe it'll help the player, group policies by themes using colors. FE, Civil Rights, Slavery, Ethnic Discr and Religious Discr could be blue (the "liberties policies"), Private Property, Social Policies and Tax Rate could be red (the "economic policies") and Foreign Affairs could be green (the "International policies").


Another thing: I might be taking your picture too literally, and if so, ignore me, but just in case: social role values, as shown in the left window, should not be shown and should not be subject to change. What should be shown are pol powers (ruler, people, capitalists, military, religious and bureaucracy), hopefully through a pie chart.
I don't know how difficult it is, but it should be nice if in the ruler's window, where the player has to enter his desired polpower distribution, the interface would allow you to move the rays of the pie (the lines dividing the pie segments), thus changing the size of the pie segments (thus changing the distribution). That's at least the friendliest interface I can imagine for a group of variables that are forced to sum 100%.

What do you think?

[LDiCesare]

The policies can indeed be grouped together.
An overall button should be as much work as the rest to do so it's ok.
The left part is for the political power blocks, I'll change the label. Sliders are much better than piecharts to change the values (easier to change, particularly if you want to move somehting from 0 to more). A pie could be added, but it would be redundant with the sliders.

[Lord God Jinnai]

What exactly does "Ethics" mean on your newly renamed "political power blokcs"

[LDiCesare]

Ethics is the political power of ethical authorities, i.e. religious power.
I belive ethics was preferred to religion as being more general.

[LDiCesare]

Here's a new interface screen. I put a few highlights. Comments about the looks (icons...) should go elsewhere, probably here.
But I'm interested in feedback about ergonomics, that is, how is the model shown to players.
Here are the interesting parts to be discussed:
1) The name of the panel changes with the selected tab. Here, the ruler is Philip, so these are Philip's preferences. Clicking 6,7,8,9,10,11 will give 'empire', 'military', etc.
2) Current government name. (Currently needs closing/opening the window to refresh it after a new turn changes the kind of government.) Computed on distances. Note I changed a bit the government.xml file we had (don't know who did it) because I totally disagreed with the Spartan Dictatorship that was in the said file. Spartans used an oligarchy which was very different from anything else (think communism with slaves) and we lacked something to represent the Roman Republic. Not that the new values are accurate, but that would need some work on the scenarios.
3) Changed teh name to try to make it clearer.
4) I want to keep the modifiable value (in the box) and end result (to the right). Maybe this needs more explanation?
5-11 and 5'-11') Icons and names of power blocks.
5) I haven't got an image for Philip so I made a generic ruler image. If the ruler has an image (as in Carthago scenario), that one will be used instead. Note that here the Philip tab is selected, and thus the pane above is what the player can modify.
6-11) Icons used to see what each power block. Ask here for better icons.
6) I called this one 'Empire'. This is the view of all the blocks but ruler. Any idea of a better name is welcome.
7-11)Warfare, Ethics, Capital, Human and Bureaucracy. Suggestions for names are welcome. Although the names are ok for the model, there are several issues:
Warfare is quite simple to understand, nut Military or Army could be better to show the player?
Ethics mostly means religious power. 'Church' might be a better name for the player to understand.
Capital is tricky because Capital may also mean the capital city. So I believe this word shouldn't be shown to the player because in English it's too confusing. Capitalists would be less ambiguous.
Human could be replaced by People.
Bureaucracy is ok. Of course, since the name is easy to find, the icon is crap and it's hard to think of a good one.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Ethics = Religious Ideology (Church only works for Christian...temples, mosques, shrines, etc are used elsewhere)
Captial=Kapital (? :P) Resources maybe?
Human? What does it mean exactly?

Anyway about something mentioned earlier...about workers PB not being implimented...what would happen then if someone created a Populist Monarchy type government?

[LDiCesare]

I don't know about 'church'. In French, L'Eglise would be understood as any religious authority, not specifically christian. Ideology doesn't bear votes. Ideologists could do, but that's a weird word.
Human = The People.

[Lord God Jinnai]

True, but in many places outside of Christian dominated religious areas Chuch is seen that way.

[yellowdaddy]

my 'umble thoughts:


THE BOTTOM:

"Empire" - how about "POWER SPECTRUM"? nice and neutral.

Don't like face icons - stick to symbols - I've posted on this on the Graphics To Do thread.


THE LEFT HAND SIDE:

"Warfare" - nowadays we call it "Defence" don't we; "THE MILITARY" is the obvious neutral term. But then, I don't know what the scale refers to.

"Ruler" - I prefer "The Government", something more general which can encompass everything from a Despotic King to a liberal cemocratic Prime Minister. Though, to be honest, I don't know what it's measuring! Even better would be "THE EXECUTIVE"

"Ethics" - So you mean "The Theocrats" then? The religious establishment? Ecclesiatics? Episcopals? Sacerdotes is a bit florid and abstruse for most people? The Church is a simple one, but might not make much sense to some non-christians.
I'd go D&D and try "THE CLERICS", the word clerical means religious, but it's nicely neutral.

"Capital" - again, not 100% clear on what the scale means, but if you like the term "Capitalists" - why not explore terms like "Plutocrats", "Fat Cats", "Business" and "Commerce"? "THE MERCANTILISTS" is a good one (rooted in the more loaded term Merchants). Unless you mean the Middle-Classes/Bourgeoisie?

"Human" - "People" is hardly much clearer... The Hoi Polloi? The Plebs? The Commoners? The Subjects? The Citizens? "THE PUBLIC"! is probably the most neutral and suitable. Unless you mean the Working-classes/Proletariat?

"Bureaucracy" - now that I think I've worked out what you mean, I think you want to change this one to "THE BUREAUCRATS" to fit with the other changes I propose above; The Civil Service.


THE RIGHT HAND SIDE:

Don't you think having "Slavery" is a bit of problem - it becomes a complete anachronism once you've abolished it - surely you should change this to something like "SOCIAL MOBILITY" to illustrate people's ability to move from class to class - obviously highly restricted if you're a slave!

I'd also change "Private Property" to "PROPERTY RIGHTS", a bit more general and neutral, and general satisfactory.

What do you mean by "Social Policy"?

"Civil Rights" could do with an explanation of what you mean, and how it differs from "Social Policy" and "Slavery"/"Social Mobility".

[LDiCesare]

Slavery should probably be discussed in the social model, but no, I think it belongs. Even today, it would be exaggerated to pretend all nations have abolished slavery.
Ruler is not the exectuive, it is the ruler. The executive is actually made of the ruler and many others, including buireaucrats. Ruler is one person, executive many. This one should stay as is.
As for the rest, the terms are defined in the social model, so I reuse them. Clergy could probably replace ethics, even though ethics may include philosophers who aren't religious.
Human = everybody. So the people is probably good.

[yellowdaddy]

Why I think Slavery is maybe not the right word:

1. It is surely a researched "technology", not something you start the game with in 10,000 BC.

2. It becomes obsolete as a nation industrialises. The countries in the modern era which still have slavery lack fully developed Social and Economic Infrastructures - slavery is displaced by Indenture, and as the taxation and financial systems and services become more sophisticated slavery becomes anachronistic and unprofitable.

3. The other issue is "types of slavery"; you have traditional ancient world slaves which are commonly understood, then you have: human trafficking, and prostitutes; people who are kinds of slaves because of who they are: women, children, racial groups, religious groups, social castes, economic classes.

What does the position on the slavery slider mean? is it the amount of slavery, or the extent of the slavery? is it the level of oppression?

Are the citizens of North Korea slaves? (ie. would the slavery slider be up at 90+%?), I can see how it makes sense under an ancient feudal government, but what about 20th century regimes?

I would be interested in seeing some example tables for different states we know, to see what they look like in game terms, that'd help illustrate the way this preferences box works.

You might opt for "Personal Freedom".
Could try "Liberty" perhaps? "Egality" (something the French should know about!); you could be more positive, and call it "Emancipation"!
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The Executive is surelyboth the decision making collective noun, and can be used to descrive the leader's position.
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Clergy is a good term, as it's not attatched to any religion. Philosophy and Religion are probably best treated as one thing in the game, the lines between them can be blurred, particularly in far east "religions".

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Human = The People... I still don't get what you mean precisely - what's all this about the "Capitalists" then? - I would naturally be inclined to go for the termThe Public regardless. It just feels more appropriate.

[audun]

Sorry if I repeat and old argument or anything, but I really don't have the time to search trough the forum.
It says in the Features list:
"...That said, a "Workers PB" (associated to the Labor role), with a power>0%, would imply that workers have a privilege over the rest people.... since this has never been the case anywhere, not even in a theoretical communism (where power just should lie in people in general), then there's no point in having that PB. "

This is only partly true. Whereas in theoritical communism workers have no privelige over the rest of the people, they do have in social democratic regimes. Namely trough labour unions. This holds true for most of Northern Europe during the last century.

Another random thought: NGOs may represent Ethics in non-religious societies. Would be cool for more modern settings.

[LDiCesare]

Good point about labour unions, though I wonder how much of the political power they actually have. They tend to make it easier to have strikes and cause disorder/unrest, so they have an indirect power, not a direct one. I'm not sure it needs a separate political power block for that. Unions tend to obtain legislation changes that they want only through active protest which is modelled as unrest in the game.

[yellowdaddy]

Unions have certainly had a lot of power in 20th century Britain...

the Labour Party itself through (as the parliamentry wing of the Union body, the TUC) originally had a constitutional obligation to obey policy set by Unions through block voting of delegates, this situation was completely brought to an end when current PM Tony Blair became leader and "broke the link with the unions" when he removed "Clause 4" which stated that the party was committed to bring into 'the common ownership of the means of production'.

http://www.labour.org.uk/aboutlabour/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_%28UK%29

This may be unique in the world, but it certainly was very real, and the power of the unions played a major part in the downgrading of Great Britain from superpower to medium or regional power by destroying British industry - like car and motorbike industries (handed over to the Japs and Germans), and lets not forget the famous NUM (coal) war with Thatcher, steel and shipyard strikes - the 3 day week in the 70s.

So in the UK at least, Unions have had more power than simply the ability to protest and influence - most of the MPs, even some PMs were Union members.


and...

What does the position on the slavery slider mean? is it the amount of slavery, or the extent of the slavery? is it the level of oppression?

[LDiCesare]

Slavery is the max amount of slavery allowed in the civ, if I remember the social model definition correctly. However, it's up to Rodrigo to answer.
Normally, the model states that depending on the slavery slider, there should be slave social class(es), but that is not implemented.